Recently the YA blogosphere, Book-tubers and the section of Twitter especially reserved for that of YA book fanatics have been talking about one thing and one thing only: the YA Book Prize, a prize for UK and Irish YA books set up by the publishers The Bookseller.

Perhaps it was being put deep under by the anaesthesia, for I am told it really is a little like dying. Well the closest one comes to dying without actually... dying; when you are sedated enough for them to cut into you. Maybe it was that which dropped me deep into myself, enough to touch the stuff that really mattered. The debris hidden behind decades of conditioning shot to the top.

I hope that my books - and whatever forms the stories may go on to take - will capture the imagination of their readers, create a vehicle for discussing environmental issues, and encourage young people to tackle global challenges by becoming the scientists and engineers of tomorrow.

I don't think I'll overcome the disappointment that nobody - ever - has chased me through an airport to stop me getting on a plane. Basically - when it comes to what I've been told about love, and what love actually *is* - I've been massively short-changed. And I'm not the only one.

I am in my late teens and I am dyslexic. When I was 10 years old I struggled to read and hated the books we studied in class as they were all so boring, but I loved the books my mum read to me and soon figured out that if I could read well enough I could read whatever I liked. Now I have a library of over 400 books on my iPod and read for an average of fourteen hours a week.

Shan - real name Darren O'Shaughnessy - became a full-time writer at the age of 23, and has since sold over 20 million copies of his books worldwide, becoming bestsellers in the US, UK, Ireland and elsewhere.

I know why I wanted to read gritty books when I was a teenager-- because my life was gritty. It wasn't sunshine and roses. Pink fuzzy unicorns weren't puking rainbows. There were issues in my home. There were issues in my friends' homes.

WARNING: This blog contains adult content Of late, there have been a number of news stories about anal sex and in particular how it is becoming more common. You might wonder how private sexual acts are newsworthy, but there are a few reasons here.

2012 might turn out to be the year for gay marriage in the UK, the US and elsewhere. Will picture books and YA novels catch up with the times and start showing LGBTQ young people that marriage is an institution that is in fact open to them?